The Family Court Accountability Coalition engages in Judicial, Legislative and Executive Branch advocacy on behalf of socioeconomically disadvantaged family court stakeholders. According to the Judicial Council of California, 75 percent of family court litigants are self-represented because they cannot afford an attorney. Yet many courts cater to attorneys and the parties they are paid to represent, while denying the indigent meaningful and effective access to family court services.

The criminal investigation report of Judge Peter McBrien by Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Criminal Investigator Craig Tourte is embedded at the end of this post. To view additional records from the 2000 prosecution and conviction of McBrien, click here. To read the Sacramento News and Review cover story about the case, click here.

Court watchdogs allege that the judge also is responsible for a family court criminal racketeering enterprise involving collusion and kickbacks between judges and divorce attorneys who also work as part-time judges in the same court. Click here for an investigative report by Sacramento Family Court News.

McBrien retired from the bench in 2014, but was authorized to continue working as a family court commissioner by controversial Sacramento County Presiding Judge Robert Hight and troubled family court Supervising Judge James Mize. To continue reading, click Read more >> below:

The character witness testimony was cited by the CJP as a "mitigating factor" that significantly reduced McBrien's punishment and allowed him to remain on the bench. Even with the testimony, two CJP commissioners stated they would have removed McBrien from office, and dissented from the decision to allow him to remain a judge.

Court whistleblowers contend that Judge McBrien set up and heads an alleged RICO racketeering criminal enterprise operating in the family law division of Sacramento County Superior Court. The alleged organization involves a for-profit conspiracy between judges and attorneys who also work as sworn temporary judges and run the family court settlement conference program.

"McBrien is the glue that holds the [racketeering] scheme together," said court watchdog Ulf Carlsson. "Hight and Mize know that without him, the whole thing could unravel and people will go to jail like they did in the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania."